During
Americanís twenty years of construction experience, our professional
architects and engineers have been involved in design assist on a
number of large projects. These have included complex geo-technical
issues involving a full range of soils conditions, many dealing with
dewatering, tar, methane, and contaminated ground water. Soil
stabilization issues have been involved in most of our projects. All
of our projects have involved work in city streets and onsite street
curbs and sidewalks, many with pavers and textured concrete and
asphalt patterns. All of our work has involved underground
utilities, many in city streets including storm drains, site water
lines up to 60 inches in diameter, site gas and underground high and
low voltage systems. Many have involved signals and traffic control
devices. All have involved transformers and transformer vaults.
Drainage, irrigation systems, site and building access issues have
all been successfully solved on our projects. Foundation systems
have included stone columns, drilled piles, caissons and mat slabs.
Through our design assist efforts in all these civil, soils and
structural areas, American has saved our clients hundreds of
thousands of dollars.

Americanís housing units have been built over one, two and three
levels of subterranean parking and over and around on-grade parking
structures. Our housing structures have included two, three and four
stories of Type V, five stories of Type III modified wood and five
stories of Type III bearing steel studs. All of our projects have
involved integration of the mechanical, electrical, plumbing and
fire sprinkler systems. Our design assist services have involved
evaluating alternate heating and cooling systems, alternate sources
of hot water, alternate methods of metering utilities, alternate low
voltage control and monitoring systems, and alternate life safety
devices.

Integrating the finishes into the frame requires detailed
coordination with the subcontractor community to work out cabinet
and cabinet top details; door and room trim details must be
integrated with the heating, electrical and plumbing fixtures. On
higher end products we have even worked out joist spacing so
sprinkler heads could be aligned with other room fixtures. Floor
coverings have different thicknesses which must be properly
transitioned or the rough must be properly depressed to receive the
finish flooring to meet code accessibility requirements. Our design
assist architects are code specialists who assist in this in-depth
coordination effort to help ensure the finished product fully
complies with code. Additionally, all of our design assist efforts
involve life cycle cost analysis of products we recommend. Our
engineers' and architects' skills in all of these areas have been
seasoned by the bottom line responsibility to complete the
construction of these designs.